Now you see me, now you don't!

"Congratulations! You and your baby are completely healthy. You should be released from the hospital within 48 hours". Those are exact words so many mothers in Serbia have been hearing over the past 3 decades; sadly only one of the two leaves hospital.


While being drugged mothers were often asked to sign a paper and few moments later their newborns were pronounced dead. Baby stays in hospital and no one knows what happens after that.

Horror begins.

Baby-trafficking has become one of the most profitable branches of criminal activity in Serbia; if this issue is on the rise then why everyone in the brown-leather recliner chair remains silent about it. What's their share and what is it at stake? Who's responsible? According to some reports more than ten thousand children have been stolen, and the lack of the appropriate law only allows this illegal activity to bloom into corporate size business.

Over the period of time, thousands of "dead" Serbian children have been "adopted" by new parents living in various countries including, but not limited to, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, Russia, Norway, Sweden, The United States of America, Canada and Australia. It sounds and it is horrible, but getting a newborn was/is as easy as placing an order for a birthday cake, except that these little angles come with a price tag of up to $50.000, depending on the newborn's overall health score and it may include several other factors.

According to the Association "Parents of missing children in Serbia", approximately 20 newborn babies are pronounced dead every month and then sold to clients world wide. While it may sound simple, committing such crime including sale and delivery, involves a huge, seems almost unbreakable, chain of people and state-run agencies - doctors, nurses, hospital caretakers, public notaries, justice of the peace, directors of public cemeteries and many others.

Awareness of this issue is very low and if ever brought up, it is stopped immediately and prevented from any further discussion. In 2012, the Association has created petition and collected much-needed thirty thousand votes and signatures to pass this issue onto the Legislative Assembly and the House of Parliament. Unfortunately, that's where it all ended. While no one is being held accountable or responsible for what happens, parents whose children have been stolen have decided to continue the battle.

Law must be created and this bill has to pass. It has to! Creating this bill would not completely stop this activity but it would most certainly reduce any possibility for this cancer of society to spread any more. Adopting this document would prohibit the extradition to PUC Funeral Services without previously obtained special permission, it would require identification of a dead newborn (including placenta) and mandatory analysis of the DNA of both parents to confirm paternity or maternity. All this would be required so that situations, like that in Spain, where doctors used the same baby and its placenta, kept it frozen for months and showed it to several different parents to convince them that their babies were dead, would never happen again.

If this happens, Serbia will be the first country in the world with this kind of law and hopefully stimulate others to follow the example thus prevent this type of activity and correct the warped behaviour of medical personnel on a much larger scale.